## Black Forest Fire 2013 ##
Our home which was the hosting site for gag.com fell victim to a forest fire
which began on 11 June 2013. Our house was very close to where
the fire started, so we had no real warning and feel very lucky to have escaped
with our lives, our pets, and a few of our most precious possessions. This was
the second really significant forest fire in the Colorado Springs area in less
than one year, and is the worst fire in Colorado history in terms of
structure loss... the count of destroyed homes is over 500.
Our property is on an edge of the burn area, so while we lost the house,
greenhouse, and one of our sheds... our other shed and many of our trees
survived. So we quickly decided to re-build on the same property, and hope
the new house will be ready by late summer 2014. In the meantime, we're
living in an apartment in nearby Colorado Springs.
If you want to hear more about our experience, feel free to view the video
of Bdale's
[talk at Linux Conf Australia](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJcnllq3VYY)
about the fire and some of the lessons we learned.
###Helping###
For those of you who have asked how you can help us restore and rebuild,
thank you. We put together several wishlists and a registries of items we
needed to get started in the apartment, all of which were quickly and
completely filled. We are extremely grateful to have so many kind and
generous friends both in the Colorado Springs area, and all over the world!
Many of the others in Black Forest who lost homes actually need help much
more than
we do. The [Pikes Peak Community Foundation](http://www.ppcf.org)
established an
[emergency relief fund](http://www.ppcf.org/products/emergency-relief)
that specifically benefits victims of this fire.
If you'd rather send money to help us rebuild, PayPal transfers to
bdale@gag.com may be the easiest way to do that.
We are also deeply indebted to the three local fire departments that we know
were directly fighting the fire on and around our property:
* Black Forest Fire/Rescue, the
department that serves us directly and were likely first on the
scene.
* Wescott Fire Protection District,
an adjacent district whose personnel were fighting the fire literally
along the edges of our driveway when we tried to drive out, and who
ended up walking us out through the already-burned area to safety.
* Falcon Fire Protection District,
whose members showed us immense generosity in the days following the
fire.
### Journal ###
* 2014 October 3Finished cleaning up the apartment and associated garages,
and turned in those keys.
* 2014 September 27Began to move out of the apartment and in to our new
house! We're home!
* 2014 September 25Our builder passed his final inspection with regional
building! A list of final (mostly cosmetic) details to finish up,
then we can move in.
* 2014 July 31Hardwood floors are in, tile floors are in process, finish
electrical has started, trim material in the process of being stained.
* 2014 June 10Rough-in inspections for plumbing, electrical, HVAC, and
so forth all completed... on to insulation!
* 2014.May 8Exterior doors and windows in, roofing begun,
duct work underway.
* 2014.April 26Concrete slabs for basement and garage floor poured.
* 2014 April 9Roof trusses installed.
* 2014 March 25Framing started.
* 2014 March 14Concrete poured for the foundation / basement walls.
* 2014 March 3Concrete poured for the foundation footers.
* 2014 February 26Ground broken! Excavation underway...
* 2014 February 19Building permits issued!
* 2014 February 7While visiting the site for other reasons, Bdale observed
that [Mountain View Electric](www.mvea.coop) has installed a new
transformer, riser, and meter base on the last electric pole on our
property.
* 2014 January 22After some iteration between the architect and engineers,
we now have a complete working plan set with engineering stamps on
the way to Regional for issuance of building permits.
* 2013 December 16Got our "last" set of questions answered by our
contractor, and signed the contract for constuction of our new house.
* 2013 December 10Met with contractor to review cost estimates for our
revised plan. We're within budget now, so gave him the go-ahead to
write up a contract!
* 2013 November 25Met with contractor and architect to deliver our
proposed updates to the plan and discuss. We're actually happier
with the revised design, they both seem to like what we proposed,
and everyone is optimistic it will come in within budget.
* 2013 November 18Met with our contractor to discuss costs. Not too
surprisingly in hindsight, what we designed would cost more to build
than we are prepared to spend. Back to the drawing board, literally!
* 2013 November 2Met with our contractor to provide information he needs
to put cost estimates together for us in parallel with waiting for
structural engineering work to be completed.
* 2013 October 21After several iterations, we now have floor plans and
elevations that accurately represent what we'd like to build.
* 2013 September 19First draft of main floor plan received from the
architect we're working with.
* 2013 August 16Demoliton work completed. The remains of our house, shed,
and greenhouse are now gone.
* 2013 July 26The remains of the two cars that burned were removed from
our property and sold as scrap metal.
* 2013 July 21After a week spent interviewing contractors who might help us
build a new house, we made a decision! We'll be working with Doug
Strecker, dba Rampart
Custom Homes. At his suggestion, we'll be using David Woody as
the architect tasked with turning our sketches into working plans.
* 2013 July 4all web sites formerly hosted returned to normal
* 2013 July 3gag.com web presence returns to normal
* 2013 June 28gag.com mail service returns to normal
* 2013 June 20Intenet service connected in the apartment
* 2013 June 18First night sleeping in the apartment
* 2013 June 17Started populating the apartment, almost entirely with
donated things. Initial registry links posted for things we could
use immediately to re-establish ourselves in the apartment
* 2013 June 15Signed lease on 2-bedroom apartment in Colorado Springs.
* 2013 June 11House destroyed by forest fire

We're not sure who created the original artwork, but thanks to Eric and the
gang at
[Black Forest Automotive](http://blackforestauto.com)
for the cool bfs.png!